


the pain got us falling apart

by hellstrider



Series: Scars 'verse [7]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, BAMF Arya Stark, Blow Jobs, But everyone actually plans, Choking, Davos is a Good Dad, Ensemble Cast, He just Doesn't Have Time, I love that Tormund Doesn't Know Names, It's softe tho, Jon Snow Knows Something, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Jon has Plans, Like for real this boy is quick in the book so have that, M/M, Minor Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Plot snuck in, Porn With Plot, Tender Sex, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Stark Kids, This is a big one, Tormund POV, Tormund is incredibly worried and wants to go HOME, plot heavy, whew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:29:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellstrider/pseuds/hellstrider
Summary: “She-wolf finally snapped, eh?” Tormund asks, breaking the tense silence, and Arya’s brow arches. Jon shoots him a look. “What? I’ve been waiting to see which one would bite down first. The wolf – or the little cat.”“Tormund,” Jon huffs, and the little lion sucks in his scarred cheek.“It was lucky I thought thevery same thing,” the little lion drawls. “I had heard a rumor that our little Lady Stark picked up some… unusual abilities on her travels far and wide, but to see it? Now that was a gift.”“She tried tocut my throat,” the tall lion says dryly. “What poor creature sheskinnedto disguise herself I’ve no idea –““Jaime,” Brienne hisses, and the tall lion spreads his arms indignantly.“What?”





	the pain got us falling apart

**Author's Note:**

> i............ am emotionally compromised
> 
> title from
> 
> u all know

Fresh bruises paint Jon’s chest, his throat, his shoulders and thighs. Tormund slides a gentle hand down the curve of the little crow’s spine, chases the gooseflesh that pebbles over white skin, glowing in the balmy firelight.

It’s been three days since the king of ice fell, and while Jon’s old bruises fade, Tormund puts new ones on him. They’re the kind that are carved out in the midst of a need that’s grown no less desperate since the army of the dead fell. They’re the kind that Jon begs him to bite into him, begs him to keep sharp and vibrant across his skin, so that Tormund might trace something with reverence rather than lingering fear.

_Tell me it’ll always be like this._

It’s almost dusk. The light fades outside their room and Jon watches him with eyes that catch the dying sun, whiskey gone gold. He’s soft, soft in a way Tormund hasn’t seen on him but in their chamber, and it brings a swell to his throat as he leans down to nose through those dark curls.

Jon hums, shifting over the furs to roll onto his back and slide an arm around the wildling’s shoulders, and Tormund pulls him close by the hip. Even though they’re safe, this is the only place he trusts to keep Jon; beneath the shield of his body, surrounded by softness and warmth. 

He’s pliant like this, well-fucked and unburdened, unafraid and so bold, eyes flush with life and light. It makes Tormund feel stronger than he’s ever felt, makes him feel like he could pull apart the throne of iron with his teeth.

They still have the threat of the gold and red lions to the south. The men need to rest, but Tormund knows the queen in the red city won’t remain idle for long. He wants to tear through her throat himself, if only it would mean he could take Jon away, far away from here, to a place where he would be free.

Jon sighs out a deep, _“Tor,”_ against his lips and the wildling sinks back between his thighs when those strong hands pull him in, each movement a command that he’s only too eager to follow. He puts the thought of the red city out of mind and chases the shadows curving over Jon’s ribs, heat pooling deep in his belly.

“You’re the one thinking loudly tonight,” Jon murmurs, fingertips splaying over Tormund’s cheekbones. His brow furrows with unease and the wildling bends to kiss it away, drawing in the warm, lavender-steel scent that clings to him.

“Are you still going to tell them?” Tormund asks quietly. “Who your father really was?”

“I have to. They’re my family, they deserve to know.”

“They’re going to try and chain you to the iron chair.”

“I don’t want it. You know that.”

Tormund leans back to meet his gaze. He sweeps a thumb over Jon’s bottom lip, leans in to nip softly at it and Jon groans, hips cresting up in a lazy, straining roll.

“I’m here until we work out a way to get Cersei gone. I leave deciding a new ruler to the smarter men.” Jon runs his hands down the wildling’s arms, over scars he’s long memorized. “I told you the only crown that mattered was the one you put on my head. I meant it.”

“You think they’ll let you slip away that easy?”

“They don’t get to decide. I don’t want it. I won’t take it.”

“Let me take you away.” Tormund noses under his jaw. “Tonight, let me take you away. They’ll never know where we’ve gone.”

“I can’t,” Jon whispers, but it sounds agonized, “I can’t leave my family without knowing they’ll be safe.”

He knows that. Of course he does. Tormund understands it and hates it, admires his little crow fiercely for it and is absolutely furious all at once. He sucks a bruise under Jon’s ear and feels that body strain up beneath him, muscle that thrums with life, bones that sing, blood that warms.

He’s furious and he loves him, loves him so fiercely it makes him toe the edge of sheer savagery in a way nothing else has. Just as Tormund is about to reach for the oil on the nightstand, a rain of knuckles patters across their door and he curses as Jon groans and puts a hand to his eyes.

“ _Snow.”_

Davos sounds grim through the sturdy wood, and Tormund is moving even before Jon can push gently at him. He fetches his trousers and tosses Jon’s over the bed to the little crow, who dresses quick and pulls his hair back into a tail behind his head.

Tormund pulls his tunic over his head and moves to the hearth, running a hand back through his own red waves as Jon pulls the door open to reveal the smuggler that waits in the corridor. He seems as unaffected by them as always – Tormund has to admit he’s become fond of the grave old sailor, one of the few he’d trust to keep Jon safe in his stead.

“Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen,” Davos says, sounding rather amused for a moment. Jon’s face goes red. “You’re gonna want to come with me. There’s been a – well. You should just come with me.”

Jon glances towards him, and Tormund arches a brow before he heads for his boots.

“Is anyone dead?” Tormund asks as they follow Davos deeper into the living quarters of the grey fort.

“Not for lack of trying,” Davos huffs lowly, and Jon walks faster, breaking into a jog when they come to the end of the corridor and find one of the Stark common rooms occupied by the rest of the wolves and a pair of lions.

“What happened?” Jon demands as he strides into the room, and everyone shifts, save for Arya, who just keeps staring at the taller lion like she’d like nothing more than to see what the inside of his skin looks like.

Ser Brienne, a little smaller without her gold armor, looks hugely uncomfortable where she lingers beside Bran’s wheeled chair, her face wan and pale. Clegane lurks in the corner, a hulking shadow, and he’s glowering at the lion as well, who’s sporting a fresh bruise on his face and a split lip. His tiny brother sits nearby, goblet in hand, looking a strange cross between angry and vastly amused.

Sansa keeps looking towards Clegane from where she stands beside Arya, as if she’s expecting him to grow horns and charge like a mammoth. A staunch sense of ire prickles through the air, not unlike the sense of keen betrayal that one can taste when two mated wolves fight over the last meat on a bone.

“She-wolf finally snapped, eh?” Tormund asks, breaking the tense silence, and Arya’s brow arches. Jon shoots him a look. “ _What?_ I’ve been waiting to see which one would bite down first. The wolf – or the little cat.”

_“Tormund,”_ Jon huffs, and the little lion sucks in his scarred cheek.

“It was lucky I thought the _very same thing_ ,” the little lion drawls. “I had heard a rumor that our little Lady Stark picked up some… unusual abilities on her travels far and wide, but to see it? Now that was a gift.”

“She tried to _cut my throat_ ,” the tall lion says dryly. “What poor creature she _skinned_ to disguise herself I’ve no idea –“

“ _Jaime,_ ” Brienne hisses, and the tall lion spreads his arms indignantly.

“ _What?_ ”

“Arya, why,” Jon starts, and he sounds so tired. Tormund resists the urge to step forward and pull him back out, let them all fight it out with their little teeth and leave his crow out of it.

“I have a list,” Arya says finally, calm and cool as anything. “Cersei is on it.”

It sends a wave of silence through the room, broken only by the fire, and the words bring a chill even to Tormund’s blood. All the Starks are endeared to him because of Jon, but he thinks the little she-wolf with the bag of faces might just be his favorite. She is what might've come of the pair of them, he thinks, were such a thing possible, and it makes him go warm in his chest with a certain fondness he hasn't felt in a long, long time.

“So you were going to use _my face –“_

“It would have been the best way.”

“I guarantee there are better,” the little lion says before his brother can sputter out anything else. “Our hateful sister sent a hitman after us, dear Lady Stark. Jaime would have about as much luck getting close to Cersei as a leper.”

“She might let ‘er close if she thought she would get a good fuck out of it,” Clegane grumbles, and Jon runs a hand over his face as the tall lion rises halfway out of his seat. Tormund moves quickly between them, growling low, and while the lion’s nose twitches, he sinks slowly back down, clearly seething.

“It doesn’t change the fact that Cersei does need to be dealt with,” Sansa says then. “She won’t be idle for long. Yara sent word that her uncle is on the move back to King’s Landing, and he’s bringing his ships with him.”

“Sansa is right,” the little lion declares brightly, raising his goblet. “The people are growing restless as they watch their food being eaten by men paid for by stolen gold. Cersei has poured all her wealth into repaying debts and buying swords. Famine will take King’s Landing within a month. The unrest will spread like a plague.”

“We can’t afford another war, either,” Davos speaks up, and Tormund had all but forgotten he was there. “The long night might be over, but winter is still coming. Whether it be haunted by men of ice or not, we don’t have the resources to pour into another campaign. Not yet – and all the houses that pledged to Daenerys have been brought to their knees.”

“Some houses would surely follow you,” Sansa says to Jon, and Tormund’s gut clenches. “We still have friends in the south.”

“Who?” Jon demands. “The Greyjoys, aye, but house Baratheon is all but extinct. We have the Tully’s and the Eyrie, and neither would move to attack King’s Landing, not at the edge of winter. Davos is right. The Lannister’s have been leeching resources from every one of the kingdoms for too long. We’re spread too thin.”

“Then we take out the red queen,” Tormund says, “and deal with the rest after. If the one who bought them dies, the men are free.”

“A host of sellswords, running loose across King’s Landing,” the tall lion says wryly, “what a wonderful idea.”

Tormund narrows his eyes at the golden-haired knight, but all he gets in response is a lifted brow.

“We don’t have to _attack_ King’s Landing,” the little lion muses. “Just surround it. Keep the people restless just a little longer. Send in Lady Stark, and once Cersei is gone…”

“Are we doing this _now?”_ Tormund asks as a silence drags out between them. “You southerners love your little tables and your wooden men – that seems to be missing. Are we allowed to discuss this sort of shit without it?”

Jon tilts his head and arches a brow, looking horribly fond and a little exasperated as the little lion snickers into his goblet.

“Could we get word to the Golden Company?” Ser Brienne asks then, glancing from Jon to the little lion. “Give them a better offer? If they decide to attack, then surrounding the city is moot.”

“With what money?” Jon asks, and Tormund doesn’t take his eyes off the little crow now. There’s a bruise on his throat that no one will dare to look at but Tormund, and he wants to take Jon away and see how deep he can get the purple, see how many more he can paint over him.

They’re discussing another war, more danger they’re going to throw his little crow into, and he feels like he’s about to go feral.

_You leapt from a dragon._

If they throw Jon Snow to the lions, Tormund will be close behind.

“Lord Varys can find the coin, I’m sure of it,” the little lion says in his periphery, sounding far too confident. “He and his little birds can get word to the good captain of the Golden Company.”

Jon meets Tormund’s gaze as the others plan a new war around them, his brow furrowed deep and his jaw tight.

It makes his stomach turn.

“That leaves the Iron Fleet,” Davos says. “But if we can get word to Yara – how many ships does the sea-queen have left in the Iron Islands?”

“I’d have to ask Theon,” Sansa replies. “But we can get word to her.”

“There are still houses in Dorne that have no love for Cersei,” the little lion says lightly, swirling his goblet idly between stubby, ringed fingers. “I’d wager they might be interested in helping bring down a tyrant.”

“We need a way to get Arya close to Cersei.” Tormund glances towards Sansa as the red-haired she-wolf speaks and meets her sister’s sharp gaze. “You need a face she trusts. Someone she trusts even more than Jaime now.”

“A girl needs only a name,” Arya says to the lions after a lull, voice thick with a meaning Tormund is certain only she understands.

“Qyburn.”

The room turns to one golden head, all eyes swiveling towards the tall lion. He’s wan, a little sickly looking as he swallows hard and glances towards Ser Brienne and then to Arya. He straightens up in his seat a little, and there’s a sorrow that lines his face, one that ages him ten years.

“That little _rat_ is still alive?” the small lion asks, laughing a bit. “Well _done_ , Jaime.”

“She doesn’t go anywhere without him,” the lion rasps. “And I don’t know where he goes at night. If he stays in the keep now, or. Or elsewhere.”

“You don’t need to,” Arya says, sounding smug. Tormund wants to meet the soul that trained her. “I only needed the name.”

“I’ll go with the little wolf,” Clegane grunts. “I’ve a score to settle in King’s Landing anyway.”

Tormund’s teeth itch. He can see it on Jon’s face, the change; he watches as ice comes down to mask his little crow’s fire, comes down to make him a thing of steel and immovable honor.

It was a blessing, to love Jon Snow. It was also a curse.

“How confident are you that Lord Varys can sway the Golden Company?” Jon asks of the small lion, and he arches a brow.

“I’ve learned not to bet against Lord Varys, Jon Snow. He won’t need to do much talking, though he is good at it. These men are mercenaries. They’ll chase the fatter coin no matter who holds it.”

Jon seems to chew on this, his jaw jumping. He runs a hand over his mouth and Tormund knew – he knew it would never be that easy to set the little crow free. This throat is thick with it, with a sorrow he can’t put a name to and an anger he doesn’t want to feel. 

The red-eyed beast inside him snaps its maw and snarls out the shape of Jon's name. He feels as if he’s about to leap from a dragon again. Jon meets his gaze and lifts his chin, defiance shuttering him out, and he _burns._

“Get word to Dorne,” Jon says lowly to the room at large, gaze flickering away. “Get word to the Tully’s and the Iron Islands. And – Davos.”

“Aye?”

Jon looks to the smuggler as the lions both rise, the taller one eyeing Arya as she watches him leave with a clever curve to her lips.

“Send for Gendry,” Jon says, and the smile on the she-wolf drops.

Davos glances to Tormund and he shakes his head slightly; he can still read his little crow, but not in this. The smuggler quirks a brow, then turns and sweeps back down the corridor with Clegane lumbering off behind him.

“Why do you need Gendry?” Arya asks, cool as ever, but there’s a cutting edge to it that Tormund recognizes – he’s held it in his own voice enough times when it came to his own heart as well.

“Bran, Sansa,” Jon says hoarsely, ignoring the question, “Arya. You three stay. Tormund, give us the room.”

“ _Snow,”_ Tormund starts, and he can feel the weight of the Starks staring at him. Jon moves quick, stepping close with eyes like agate, and Tormund feels like he’s back at Castle Black, chains on his wrists and a heat in his blood for the little shit that kept the key.

“I said,” Jon says, and there’s iron in his voice, “give us the room. Now.”

He’s not unused to Jon’s ferocity, but this time, it sets his teeth on edge in a way that he’s never felt before. Tormund searches his shuttered face, and he knows – he _knows_ it’s not real, thinks of the soft thing he’d had beneath him just an hour ago, but it still _burns._

He wants to fight him. He wants to fuck him, and he wants to throw him over his shoulder and never let him look back again.

The wildling does none of those things. After a moment longer with horns locked, Tormund lifts his chin and matches the steel that comes from Jon with his own. He turns and doesn’t look back as he heads down the dimly lit corridor, gut a festering wound of fire and seething, horrible devotion he knows he’ll never shake.

All he wants is to stop feeling this fucking _fear._ Tormund staved it off when the dead came but it still ate away at him, and when the night ended, it took a piece of him with it. Some part of him had died to the walkers, gone to the teeth of utter terror – gone to the fear that he would see Jon Snow dead again, weeping from too many wounds.

All he wants is to wrap Jon Snow up and keep him safe, and every turn, his little crow finds a new way to put his neck beneath the blade.

He doesn’t go back to their room. In truth, he wants to break something – he wants to drink, he wants to put a fist into flesh.

He doesn’t do any of that, either.

Instead, Tormund finds himself stood out in the open-air corridor, watching the snow drift slowly from the night sky. His hands curl into the smooth railing, heedless of the cold, because his core is molten as pitch and he can taste smoke at the back of his tongue.

Another war. Another pit of fangs.

And he’d be running into it right after Jon Snow, if just to be the one that caught him if someone got lucky enough to wrench the life out of him again.

He closes his eyes and sees the table. If he thinks on it, he can still hear the Red Woman’s curling words, can hear the crackle of the fire, the lack of heartbeat in the body on the slab. His scars had been open wounds, had been gaping and cherry-red.

No pain came close to how it felt when the Red Woman bowed her head and uttered a single breathless, desperate _‘please’_ over the body of his little crow. He’d felt his _soul_ surge to meet it when she called to the flames, and knew the thing inside him called for Jon.

“Steady on, wildling.”

Tormund looks over as Davos sidles towards him, and for a moment he thinks of telling him to fuck off. Davos looks like he knows it, too, if his soft huff is anything to go by.

“A shite hand it is, loving an honorable man,” the smuggler says after a beat. “You can save them from wildfire, from men of ice, but never from themselves.”

“There will always be another war,” Tormund says roughly. “How many will he have to fall into? How many will he be called to?”

“He doesn’t fight wars for the joy of it.”

“No. He fights because he thinks he owes the world a shield made of his flesh and blood.”

“It’s why he went to the wall.” Davos arches a brow. “They were the swords and the shields that guarded the realms of men. Jon Snow will always try to be the force between what he loves and the fire that comes for it.”

“I still fucking see it.” The wildling clenches his jaw. “I still _smell it._ The fucking stench of death that clung to him. The blood that turned his hair slick.”

“Aye.” The old smuggler leans on the railing, gaze following Ghost as the direwolf chases after a rabbit, tail wagging and ears forward. “I still see green fire and snow. But you – you get to see him smile. You get to hear him laugh, hear him weep. Jon Snow is still alive, Giantsbane. You need to decide if you’re strong enough not to fear _that_ more than the dead thing in your memory. If you can take staying beside him.”

“I would _never_ leave him,” Tormund growls, heart in his mouth, and Davos arches a brow.

“I know that. The entire north knows it. You choose to be strong, and you choose to feel the fear. Just don’t let it burn a hole into the piece of you that carries him. You’ll find yourself making him into an enemy.”

The mere thought makes him want to bend steel in his palms, but he knows there’s truth to Davos’ words. Of course he knows. Tormund is a wildling, and he doesn’t know about their stuffed southern manners or the proper names for movements in battle, but he’s not a fool.

He’s seen war twist love into poison, has seen men throttle their wives and lovers cut at each other until all that’s left is blood beneath the godless sky. Tormund won’t lose Jon Snow to the sword-throne, and he won’t be the shadow that haunts him. He breathes even and deep, fills his stomach with the cold air and runs a hand back through the toss of his hair.

Davos claps a firm hand to his back, then he’s sidling off again. Tormund watches Ghost down below for a bit longer; the direwolf has the poor rabbit cornered, but he’s started to clean the quivering animal instead of clamping his jaw around its throat.

The wolf looks perfectly content to plop down and tend to the bunny as the snow falls down around him, and for some reason, that’s the thing that melts the last bit of ire buzzing low in Tormund’s gut.

“Fucking fool king and his fucking gentle wolf,” he mutters, shoving away from the railing, “ _fuck.”_

_Do you remember what you said to me, the night Mance attacked Castle Black?_

Tormund slips through the Great Hall, dark and quiet in the clutch of night.

_I might have hated you that night, Jon Snow, but you were still mine._

Jon is pacing when he enters their chamber – _theirs_ , he thinks fiercely, the warm burr rolling through him growing hot as coals. His little crow halts as Tormund shuts the door, looks a little wild-eyed and steely still, as if he’s readied himself for a fight.

_You keep making me hate you. Stop making me hate you._

“I have to keep them _safe,”_ Jon starts vehemently, and he can barely hear him, can barely feel the warmth of the fire as he sidles towards the little crow. “I have the power to keep you _safe_ – all of you!”

_Do you remember?_

“You can hate me if you want. Gods know I deserve it.”

_But you’ll be alive to do it._

His skin is so soft under his palm. Tormund cups his jaw and Jon’s chest jumps, breath hitching soft and sharp in his throat.

“Tor?” Quiet. Rough. His eyes have flecks of gold in them.

_I should’ve thrown you from the top of the wall!_

_Aye,_ and Jon’s brow furrows as he brings their heads together, _you should have._

His chest is a tangle of everything all at once, and it feels as if he’s got the winter-fever. He nudges along Jon’s nose with his own, stealing the air he exhales, letting it soothe his aching lungs.

_I love you._

_Even when you hate me?_

The anger turns inward. Jon’s lips are dry and a little tense beneath his own, and Tormund slides his hand into his hair, gathers him close at the nape of his neck until Jon’s fingers slip under the deep V of his tunic.

_You leapt from a dragon._

He pulls them flush together; his little crow gives a shuddering breath before surging up against him, and the kiss whips through Tormund like an inferno. Jon Snow is a part of him now, as immovable as the mountains in the far white north, as undefeatable as the heart that beats beneath his scarred chest.

Jon Snow is a part of him, and where he goes, Tormund will follow. Whether it be to the red pit of lions or the wild white, he will go where Jon does. If the king in the north was to be a shield for the realms of men, he would be the sword that kept the worst from him.

Slowly, he draws back from Jon, who opens those whiskey eyes and when he sways towards him, it cuts him down to the core. Carefully, so carefully, Tormund puts his hands over Jon, over the scar across his heart and then lower, over the five wounds he can still sometimes see bleeding in his gut.

Jon’s brow furrows deep as he starts to sink down, and he’s never done this before, never felt the pull to the stone before, but now he does. A soft breath catches in Jon’s throat and Tormund untangles the laces of his tunic, pulling it open with ease. He skates his teeth across the wounds on his flat stomach, grips Jon’s hips and kneels before him, heart thundering so fiercely he thinks it might fall from his chest.

“Tor –“

“Out of these,” Tormund orders huskily against his skin, tugging at Jon’s boots, and the little crow braces his hands on his huge shoulders as he steps out of them.

He unlaces Jon’s breeches and the ivory tunic drops into his elbows as the waist falls open, then sighs to the floor. Jon is breathing a little too hard, his hands gripping at Tormund’s shoulders a little too tight, and he catches a wrist to kiss down his palm and over the stammer of his pulse.

“I didn’t – Tor, you don’t need –“

“No,” he agrees. “But I am anyway.”

Jon’s palm is rough-soft when it moves over his throat to cup his chin, fingers tangling into his beard. His gaze reaches down into Tormund’s core, where the fire lives, and when he steps close and the musk of him hits, the flames sweep over his ribs. He can still taste the fear in Jon, the regret, the guilt; it tastes like Hardhome, like the long voyage back, when Jon was so silent and so angry, and Tormund could do nothing but stand beside him.

It tastes like Hardhome, and the death that came with it – including Jon Snow's.

“I’m here,” he says against Jon’s hip. _And so are you._ “I’m right here, sweet thing.”

The hitch in his breath is wet, but strong. Jon’s hand cards through his hair and Tormund turns his head into the touch, dragging his nose over Jon’s navel and drinking in the warmth of him, the scent of him. He smells of sex still, of spend and sweat and something spiced and thick, a masculine scent that makes the wildling’s spine ache and his hips crest forward, cock aching in his breeches.

And then, his little crow is sinking down, and Tormund’s throat goes thick when he splays a hand over his heart. His nose twitches with a building sneer and his eyes are fierce and bright, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

“This one last battle,” Jon whispers. “One last fight. Do you trust me when I say it?”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true,” Tormund murmurs, sliding a hand around his nape, thumbing over his clenched jaw. “I’d ride to the bottom of the fanged sea with you. So long as we are together, little crow, we have a home.”

Jon’s chest rises and falls quick, as if he’s just come from that last fight, and all Tormund can do is drag him in and taste the choking gasp that punches out of him with the force of a thunderclap.

It’s so easy to splay his hands over Jon, so easy to coax him back to the stone; Tormund drags his tongue down the center of his stomach and noses into his groin as his cock grows thick in the thatch of black hair between his thighs. The scent of him makes him _savage,_ his skin pebbling with gooseflesh, mouth watering and hands aching to spread him open and take what belongs to him.

There are bruises along the inside of his thighs, bruises that the wildling traces with his tongue until Jon is arching up and pearly strands of seed start to weep from the head of his cock. He’ll never tire of it, he thinks; of the way Jon falls apart, of the sounds he makes when Tormund touches him with firm, sure hands – the hands of a lover, of the only one who gets to see him like this.

Of all the fools in the world, Jon chose him. A wild thing from the north, a wild thing that has hated him and loved him in equal turns until all that he knew was _Jon Snow_ , for better or for worse. Jon chose him, and now he knows how to undo the stoic little crow that came out of the dark – the man who died and lived again, the man who brought the wildlings north and spat in the face of the god of ice. Jon Snow is the man who saved them all, and Tormund is the only one who can tear him apart.

“Did you think I was going to leave you to this new war?”

Jon shudders, and Tormund rears back to shuck away his tunic.

“Did you think I was going to turn from you?”

“Tor –“

“You did.”

But Jon Snow is _his._ It burns, but Jon is _his,_ and if he needs to remind him of it, he will.

He’ll remind him that Tormund is the only one who gets to wrap his hands around his hips and gets the wolf to bare his throat; he’s the only one who gets to lick over his pulse and suck bruises to the surface of his pale skin, copper on his tongue when he pulls away and red blooming from purple.

“You fool boy,” he murmurs against his ear; “I’d kill any other man if he told you I’d turn away from you. I’d pull his heart through his spine.”

When he catches a pebbled nipple between his teeth, Jon _whines,_ his fingers tangling through Tormund’s hair until it burns. He laves his tongue over his chest, groaning over the scar above his heart when Jon presses a shaking thigh so gently between his own. The wildling ruts down slow and heavy against his leg and Jon stutters over his name as Tormund bites bruise after bruise over him.

“I made you hate me again,” Jon murmurs. “I could see it. I could feel it. Will you take me like that? Like you hate me?”

Tormund goes still, his lips hovering over Jon’s ribs. He slides back over him and noses up his throat, forcing Jon to bare it again, his dark hair a pool beneath his head. The wildling pulls the leather thong from the black curls and digs a hand into it, pulls Jon’s head back until he can see the pulse in his throat.

“I told you once. I could never hate you.” He bites at his chin. “And I’ll never fuck you like that. But I can promise you, sweet thing – I’m going to make you weep with it for thinking I’d ever leave you behind.”

Jon’s breath hitches so prettily, a sound like a building roar.

“ _Please,”_ he groans, and Tormund drags his lips down his jaw. “I need – _yes._ Just make it _stop,_ Tor. Keep me in one place, _please.”_

“I need something from you, sweet thing.”

“Anything.”

“You told the other little wolves where you truly came from, I know that. You needed to.”

Tormund leans back and feels a spike of heat threaten to gut him; Jon looks half wrecked already, and they’ve not even begun. He traces Jon’s scars with a forefinger, meets those whiskey eyes and holds them.

“Right here, with me – you leave it behind. If you want to run, you run to me, and you leave it all behind. Targaryens, Starks – I want you to give me the things that haunt you, Jon Snow. Here, with me, you are who you need to be. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Jon’s lips part and Tormund thumbs over them, ignoring the ache between his legs in favor of watching the way the tip of his tongue, so pink, looks against his snow-burnt finger.

“Can you do that, sweet thing? Can you give up your ghosts here?”

“Yes,” Jon whispers, “you’re the only one who could put them to ground. It’s always been you.”

He takes his hand away and catches Jon’s groaning lips in a kiss, lifting his head from the stone with one hand cradling his neck. Tormund knows he aches to be free, knows there’s a wild thing beneath Jon’s skin he’s afraid of. He knows that his fear of the wild thing quiets here, knows that Jon Snow grows bigger into his bones when he’s caught up against Tormund’s chest and allowed to howl.

“Then they belong to me, as you do,” the wildling purrs, dragging the words down Jon’s throat. “And I’ll spend the rest of my fucking life reminding you of it.”

“ _Yes –“_

Teeth across his stomach, and the world falls away. Tormund bites at the sensitive crease of the little crow’s thigh; Jon curses and digs a hand into his hair, gasping breathless and so sweet when he ghosts the tip of his tongue over his cock. He presses just _there_ at his thigh and swallows him down at the same time, reveling in the bright cry that echoes off the rafters. Jon keens and rolls his hips, a sinuous, sensual wave that has Tormund gripping the base of his own cock, a groan vibrating down the length pressed to his tongue.

The little crow is wet, weeping steadily, and the taste of him is enough to make him want to turn him and mount him like a wild beast. Tormund slides a hand under the globe of his ass and squeezes hard, hard enough it’ll sting, and Jon gives a throaty cry in response, hips twisting both away from the burn and into it at the same time.

He laves his tongue over the thick vein running up Jon’s cock, traces the shiny head and swallows around him until Jon’s thighs tremble against his shoulders and his keens begin to shatter as fine as ice. The little crow leaks and leaks, so thickly he might be coming undone as slowly as he’s ever seen – and Tormund growls low before he draws back, leaving Jon panting hard and rutting into nothing.

“Tor – _fuck –“_

Jon’s back is slippery with sweat when he hauls him up, eyes glazed, and lips bitten pink. He tries to rut into Tormund’s belly and he laughs, a low burr that makes Jon groan and his nose twist into a sneer.

“ _Fuck –“_

“Up on the bed, sweet thing. Get the oil.”

When Jon stands, he smacks his ass and the little crow staggers, cursing and shoving at his head. Jon moves like a newborn faun, and Tormund watches the way his ass flexes when he slides onto their bed and falls back against the pillows, one hand at the base of his cock and the other clutching the oil. Slowly, the wildling rises and steps out of his boots, shucks off his breeches and grins when Jon gives a growling, throaty groan.

He slides onto the foot of the bed, crouching at Jon’s feet. Running a hand up his shin, Tormund arches a brow and nods to the oil.

“You know what it’s for, little crow. Use it.”

“I –“

“Don’t tell me you can’t. You’re going to get ready for me, sweet thing, and then you’re going to let me mount you. I want you shaking for it, for my hands back on you. Your own won’t be enough, I can promise you that.”

“Oh, _fuck –“_

“Not if you don’t get on with it. Unless you don’t think you can do it.”

“Fuck _off.”_

Jon laughs and groans, gone red as he pops the cork from the oil. Tormund keeps a hand at the base of his cock as Jon slides up against the pillows and sinks a hand past his own, down between his legs, and it takes all the self-control he doesn’t have to stay right where he is. The wildling’s thighs strain with it, every muscle in his body poised and kept perfectly still as Jon sinks a finger into himself and presses back into the wooden headboard.

“I can’t – get _deep enough_ –“

“No,” Tormund murmurs, greedy for it. “That’s for me, little crow. Only for me.”

Jon’s face is glistening with sweat, shimmering like the moon as he rolls his hips down into his hand. It’s the most erotic thing Tormund’s ever seen – which is startling, but at the same time not. Jon Snow has always seemed as pure as his given name seemed to imply, always untouchable, immovable, impossible.

_And yet._

And yet, Tormund is the one who gets this. No other has this, and it sets a fire so violent in him he wonders if he might breathe it. Curls stick to Jon’s throat, and he’s straining now, eyes fluttering shut as he does as Tormund bids, forgetting the rest of the world in the clutch of their haven. It’s as much a reward as the climax is, if not more of one. Jon keens and growls low then, and Tormund’s thin, reedy control snaps. He slides forwards and takes the oil from the little crow, kissing up his wet chest as Jon utters his name and grows restless. He slides a hand over Jon’s throat, pinning him with care to the headboard when he meets his whiskey eyes.

“I think you’re ready enough, don’t you?”

“ _Fuck,_ I need to feel you, I –“

Tormund drags him down from the headboard by his hips and when he flips him, Jon growls out a ‘ _finally’_ that has him landing another smack over the globe of his ass. He slides over Jon after slicking himself up, big enough he eclipses him, a sun crossing over the moon.

“Wild little thing,” he breathes into his ear as he snakes a hand around his chin. “Bite down.”

He starts to sink into Jon as even teeth dig into the space between thumb and forefinger. Tormund holds him still with another hand at his hips, and Jon groans so viciously he feels his bones thrum when he slides in to the hilt. Jon is tight and slick with oil, hot enough to burn and so fucking _needy_ as he pushes back into him.

“Tor, please –“

“I have you. You know I do.”

“Always, fuck, always –“

Tormund drops his hand from his chin and slides an arm around Jon’s chest, hauling him up and over his thighs. Jon shouts with it, the sound rolling down into a keen that sounds almost like a laugh. Carefully, the wildling catches one of his arms and brings it behind his back, kept between their bodies as he runs his nose up the nape of Jon’s neck.

“How long could you sit on me like this?” Tormund murmurs. “How long could you keep me like this?”

“As long as _I_ wanted, I suppose,” Jon moans, hips straining, but he doesn’t have much leverage with his arm kept back. “It depends on how good – good you were, I think.”

“How good _I_ am?”

“You _knelt to me_ ,” Jon purrs, sliding back until his head is cradled on Tormund’s shoulder. “You touch me because _I_ need you to. You touch me because I _let you._ I have to want it, love, and I have to mean it. And so do you.”

Tormund slides his hand over that porcelain throat, and Jon gives him a smile that he only ever sees when they’re like this.

“And do you?” he burrs, “tell me.”

He can smell it, can see it, can feel it – he wants to hear it. He wants to hear it, the sweetest song he’s ever fucking heard.

“Yes,” Jon breathes, and Tormund slides one hand to his hip. “And you?”

“ _Always,”_ the wildling snarls, and slams up into Jon hard enough the little crow shouts.

He wishes they had a looking glass, if only for Jon to see what he looked like as he was fucked like this, thighs spread open over Tormund’s in an obscene sprawl and cock weeping steadily over the furs. He wishes they did so he could watch it, could watch as the flush spread down Jon’s chest, as his thighs went pink, knuckles dusted with rose where he clings to Tormund’s arm. Tormund growls against his ear and slows his thrusts, rolling his hips, seated so deep inside Jon he thinks he might leave a piece of his soul behind.

Jon sobs with it, gasping wet and hard as he tries to grind down, his fingers so tight around Tormund’s wrist he’ll bruise. The sound of flesh smacking against flesh fills the room, broken apart by his snarls and Jon’s moans, his keens and his stammering cries of Tormund’s name, a hymn that paints his bones and shields his heart.

When Tormund lets go of his arm to slide his hand to Jon’s cock, the little crow scrabbles at his forearm and clings there, too, a slow chant of “please, please, please,” falling from his lips. Jon is held together by his arms and his arms alone, kept pinned in place by the cock driving into him, and when he comes undone, he comes undone with a sob, body shuddering and arching back against the wildling’s chest.

“Good boy,” Tormund breathes into his ear, and he brings his hand up to taste him, fire surging down through his groin. Jon swears and whimpers as he watches with dewy eyes, silver lines down his cheeks, cutting through the layer of sweat.

When he empties himself, Jon’s thighs clench and his hips roll, as if he’s determined to wring everything from him. Tormund snarls and bites at the sweaty nape of his neck, white heat searing from his cock to his knees and back again, the taste of Jon on his tongue and the sound of the little crow’s soft moans shuddering through his skin.

For a long couple of heartbeats, Tormund sways into Jon, one arm still braced against his chest as he kisses across his shoulders. The little crow breathes his name, sounding so blissful it tugs at him and Tormund slides carefully from Jon and gathers him close, sliding across the furs until he’s against the headboard and Jon is in his lap, cradled to his chest.

He slides a thumb across Jon’s cheek as another tear breaks free, and his little king hums, curling a hand around his wrist. Tormund’s chest is thick with the rawest kind of love; the red-eyed thing settles as Jon does, whining low when the little crow looks up and tangles his fingers into his beard to pull him down for a kiss.

“I did tell them,” Jon murmurs, as the sweat cools and Tormund draws a thick fur over them both. “I had to.”

“I know, sweet thing.”

Jon presses his cheek to his sturdy collarbone. “I won’t be chained to the throne. I promise you, Tor. I won’t. I don’t want it.”

Tormund runs his fingertips through Jon’s damp hair and noses at the crown of his head.

“I believe it, little crow. Whatever comes, I’m with you. I’ll always be with you.”

Jon kisses over his throat, and Tormund growls a teasing warning that draws a soft laugh from the little king. In the morning, they’ll need to bathe – Jon is irritatingly addicted to it – and Tormund will ask him why the boy Gendry was brought. He’ll ask what plan Jon has stirring in his quick mind, because he can practically see the threads weaving together even as Jon grows heavy against him. Tomorrow, they’ll bathe, and Jon will innocently try to wash the wildling’s hair and Tormund will catch him close only to dirty him again, and he’ll ask him what he’s plotting.

For now, though, he keeps Jon against his chest and runs his fingers through his hair. He runs his fingers through Jon’s hair and Jon traces the scars over his chest. The red-eyed thing lifts its head and huffs, swelling and swelling until Tormund is nearly overwhelmed with it, and he shuts his eyes as he presses a kiss to Jon’s brow.

“I love you,” he says, and it doesn’t hurt, not as much as it used to. “I love you.”

Jon presses his hand flat to his heart. His warm eyes lift, and Tormund thumbs over his lip, tries to memorize the kind of smile it is that he sees now on Jon’s face, because it’s one he’s never seen before.

“I know,” the little king says quietly. “And that’s why I’m going to do this and set us both free. We’ll be free.”

Tormund’s never been a man of faith. He didn’t believe in the gods when they let Jon Snow fall into the fang-water, or when they let him die. He didn’t believe in the gods when Jon Snow stared down death, and he doesn’t now.

But he does believe in Jon Snow, the king he chose, and that – that will be the thing that saves him.

**Author's Note:**

> tormund, shaking out pain pills from a bottle: i don't have a headache. i'm just preparing.


End file.
